Tumbledown Farmer's Blog

Leavings: Poems

2009-11-13T17:06:00.000-08:00

Wendell Berry, Leavings: Poems, Counterpoint, Berkeley, CA, 2010. (132 pp.)

I have been living for the past few weeks with Wendell Berry's latest anthology of poems in my backpack and have decided it is time to share a few thoughts about it. The book is in two parts: the first part is a potpourri, an all-too-short assortment of letter poems, occasional pieces, and brief reflections (the 20 titled poems in the collection are here); the second part is entitled "Sabbaths 2005-2008" and carries the tag line, "How may a human being come to rest?" (54 numbered poems make up this section.)

The title Leavings is not the title of any of the poems, but seems to sum up the book, as if Berry were deliberately taking leave of his readers. "It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old." (2007.VI) "In time a man disappears..." (2007.VII) "I know I am getting old and I say so,..." (2005.VII) There are other leavings here too, other than the merely personal, predominantly that of the descending water that flows out from a lowly stream named Camp Branch. Falling tones, falling leaves (literally), falling steps, falling stones, falling snow and falling rain transport the reader to the Kentucky countryside where we see the place that has meant and still means the world to Mr. Berry. This small collection takes the reader on a painful but beautiful journey, a shared pilgrimage down familiar paths measured in ever slower and more halting steps, made all the more valuable for the fact that the reader is not required to leave his native place to join Mr. Berry except in imagination. "So many times I've gone away from here, where I'd rather be than any place I know.... It is death." (2008.X)

One of my favorite poems in this collection, one I know I'll return to many times, occurs early in Part I and is entitled simply "An Embarrassment." The severe economy of language--3 or 4 word lines mostly, mostly 1 or 2 syllable words--conveys the embarrassment of friends who regularly offer thanks for a meal when they eat alone but who are now trying to decide whether to do so when they are together. One of them, having decided to make a go of the prayer, leaves (!) them both embarrassed as the prayer falls awfully flat. I'll not ruin the ending for you, but it is a Berry-esque show stopper. For someone who makes his living as a pastor, that one poem was worth the price of admission. But there are many others from this book that will now join my ever growing list of Berry favorites: e.g., "A Speech to the Garden Club of America," which admonishes us to go "back to school, this time in gardens." Or "While Attending the Annual Convocation of Cause Theorists and Bigbangists at the Local Provincial Research University, the Mad Farmer Intercedes from the Back Row." (If you've read The Mad Farmer Poems, you'll appreciate the appropriateness of this addition to the corpus.

I have been reading (and re-reading) Wendell Berry's work for quite a while now. That means I've heard many of the words and seen many of the ideas before. But these poems are new, encountered for the first time like today's bracing walk in a familiar woods I've visited many times. In that sense they are very gratefully received; it is, after all, November and there are too few such walks left to me ...and to you.

It wouldn't be right to end the review without a full list of Wendell Berry's poetic works. Check your shelves! If you do not have all of these, you'll want them on a shelf close by when the winter winds begin to blow the snow around.

The Broken Ground: Poems

Clearing

Farming: A Hand Book

Openings: Poems (Harvest/Hbj Book)

A Part (Part Paper)

Sabbaths

Sayings and Doings

The Wheel

Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food

2009-08-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

Berry, Wendell. Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food. Counterpoint: Berkeley, CA, 2009. With an introduction by Michael Pollan.

It is hard for me to admit, ever, to being disappointed by Wendell Berry. And even now it isn't so much Berry, whom I do not know personally (I've only ever heard him speak once live), but the latest book to come out under his name that is the source of my disappointment. And it isn't what is in the book that disappoints me. The problem is that I have already read most of the content before in other books by Berry that I already own. This book should have come with a large warning on the ad page (I pre-ordered from Amazon, based on the advance copy description) that this book is 99% recycled material, pre-composted, repackaged fertilizer if you will. So, after rushing into the house to open the package when it arrived, I had that all-too-familiar sinking feeling as I flipped through the pages of my "new" book by Berry. Other than the introduction by Pollan, I've seen it all before. In fact, I now own multiple copies of most of these chapters in the form of other collections of Berry essays.

Even more annoying to me is the fact that the chapters come marked only with the date of previous publication. (Except for the fiction excerpts, which are marked by the title of the novel in question, but not with the date of publication.) Nowhere does there seem to be a note citing the locus of that previous publication. I cannot even confirm easily my suspicion that I already own (versus having merely already read) the non-fiction essay in question. And as you might expect, I do not object so much to reading something twice (if I cannot remember that I have read it already, that is my problem) as I object to purchasing it twice. As someone who is interested in the context within which ideas arise and the history of their publication and dissemination, I like to know how to track the paths of words and ideas in the world, especially those that have occurred elsewhere in a prior conversation. Here the essays seem to be lifted out of their primary location and recombined in such a way as to erase all sense of place. (I would say time and place, except that the year is duly noted at the top of each chapter.) That is something I think Berry would (or should) object mightily to, given that he is so keen to preserve local adaptation and local landscapes. If we cannot preserve the local nature of our thoughts and ideas from such globalized generalization, how will we ever preserve real farms, farmers, and food?

I will not do what should have been the author's, editor's, and publisher's work for them by tracking down and publishing the location of the previous publication of these essays, but I will do you the favor of listing the title and date of publication here so that you can check your shelves before you order:

Part I: Farming

Nature as Measure, 1989

Stupidity in Concentration, 2002 (which includes Berry's definition of "sustainable agriculture")

Agricultural Solutions for Agricultural Problems, 1978

A Defense of the Family Farm, 1986

Let the Farm Judge, 1997

Energy in Agriculture, 1979

Conservationist and Agrarian, 2002

Sanitation and the Small Farm, 1971

Renewing Husbandry, 2004

Part II: Farmers

Seven Amish Farms, 1981

A Good Farmer of the Old School, 1985

Charlie Fisher, 1996

A Talent for Necessity, 1980

Elmer Lapp's Place, 1979

on The Soil and Health, 2006

Agriculture from the Roots Up, 2004

Part III: Food

mostly drawn from Berry's fiction writing

from That Distant Land

from Hannah Coulter

from Andy Catlett

from "Misery"

from The Memory of Old Jack

from Jayber Crow

from Hannah Coulter (again)

The Pleasures of Eating, 1989

So, would I recommend the book, and if so, to whom? Clearly I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone who is well familiar with Berry's work and who owns a considerable library of Berry's fiction and non-fiction. I would recommend it to anyone who hasn't read Berry, who knows him only by reputation, and who wants a quick introduction to his thoughts about sustainable agriculture and local food. For example, I could imagine the book as assigned reading in a college course on contemporary issues, especially environmental issues. But the reader should understand that tracking down the original source of some of the essays may be difficult should he or she become "hooked" like so many of us are, including evidently Michael Pollan, on Wendell Berry's prose and poetry. (Which brings up another interesting oversight; why wasn't some of Berry's poetry included?)

The Soil and Health

2009-06-25T06:27:00.000-07:00

Sir Albert Howard, The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture (Culture of the Land), with a new introduction by Wendell Berry, The University Press of Kentucky, 2006.

This book is one of A Series in the New Agrarianism by UPK, edited by Norman Wirzba, that bears the title Culture of the Land. The book was originally published in 1947. It followed the publication and good reception of An Agricultural Testament in 1940. (One may hope that An Agricultural Testament will also be added to this series or reprinted by some other publisher soon.) This book is one of a set of classic texts, along with F. C. King's Farmers of Forty Centuries,
Lady Eve Balfour's The Living Soil (Soil Association Organic Classics), and the like, that have occasionally been reprinted and should remain always available in print. One suspects that they will be widely accessible again as soon as they enter the public domain. In the meantime, short run or print on demand--or re-sale by abebooks.com and the like--must suffice to keep a new generation of readers informed.

This book certainly deserves the reputation it has received as a "classic." Sir Albert Howard is plain spoken and easy for any agricultural practitioner--including this one--to understand. Though it is somewhat getting the cart before the horse to say so, Howard truly exemplifies the purpose of the series, demonstrating a profound appreciation for the "intimate and practical connections which exist between humans and the earth." Perhaps that is because Howard was, as is often stated, a pioneer and founding source for the New Agrarianism and the organic movement. Nowhere have I seen the connection between humans and the earth more profoundly and clearly stated than in the progression of Howard's outline for Part II of the book, "Disease in Present-Day Farming and Gardening." Howard moves with deliberation from diseases of the soil, through diseases of crops, to disease and health in livestock, and ultimately to a brief and convincing statement of the relationship between soil fertility and human health.

I was bemused to discover again the depth of my ignorance. I am a product of U.S. public schools--primary, secondary, and college all in the great agriculturally dependent state of Tennessee--from 1972 to 1984. I took "biology" as a school course (not counting the units of biology in early science classes) twice, once in High School and once again in college, but never do I recall hearing of the "Mycorrhizal Association" or the "web-like mycelial strands" that surround and invade some plant roots. As recently as 2007 I took the Master Gardener course from the Purdue Extension service, and again do not recall having heard anything about the mycorrhizal association in some roots. Certainly there was an emphasis on keeping organic matter high in our gardens and an emphasis on care in working the garden not to destroy the soil structure (not to work too often, or when the soil is too wet or too dry), but nothing was said about the importance of the symbiotic relationship with some microbes for the growth of some plants. It is clear that the association is understood as scientific fact and that its importance for plant growth is also understood, though the remedies (adding more synthetic phosphorous to what Howard would have called the "artificial manure" mix) are not necessarily ones embraced by organic agriculture. (e.g., Purdue note regarding the effect of flooding on helpful fungi.)

The fact that the mycorrhizal association is recognized and still studied today as an aspect of forestry and natural resource management suggests that Howard's drawing of connections between the forest (Howard recommends "afforestation," including forests in the long-term agricultural rotation) and a sustainable agriculture and human health is true, even if viewed by today's agro-science technicians as impractical. The book, 300 pages of small type, is too extensive to do it justice with a single review. Perhaps the best recommendation for the book is its constant citation by others more qualified than I to speak about organic agriculture. I think it is for good reason that Howard and his "Wheel of Life" (with its imperative to return everything to the soil whence it came) has formed a constant touchstone for authors like Wendell Berry (e.g., "The Use of Energy" in The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry). Perhaps the best and most important thing to take from a first (hopefully not the last) reading of Howard is that "The first duty of the agriculturalist [farmer or gardener] must always be to understand that he [or she] is a part of Nature and cannot escape from his environment" (p. 194). This maxim leads everywhere in the book to delightful conclusions like the following: "the attempt to raise natural earth-borne crops on an exclusive diet of water and mineral dope--the so-called science of hydroponics--is science gone mad; it is an absurdity which has nothing in common with the ancient art of cultivation" (ibid.)

To which this reviewer can only add "amen!"

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year-Round Vegetable Production Using Deep-Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses

2009-06-11T16:47:00.000-07:00

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses, by Eliot Coleman, with Photographs and Illustrations by Barbara Damrosch, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2009.

Eliot Coleman has a new book out and it is a measure of his popularity with readers of all stripes that I had to wait from April to June on the waiting list at the Indianapolis Marion County Public Library(IMCPL) to receive a copy, and then promptly had the book recalled as soon as I got it home. I'll get back on the list as soon as I return the book, and eventually I'll spring for the cost of ownership. This book represents a significant advance in some of the production aspects over other books by Coleman, even those others from Chelsea Green. Especially delightful are the full-color photos of Coleman's garden operation. As we have come to expect, Coleman brings the same care and craft to writing that he so obviously brings to growing beautiful, healthy vegetables. For those who already own The New Organic Grower's Four-Season Harvest (1992, 2002) or Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long (1992, 1999) or The Winter Harvest Manual or The New Organic Grower (revised edition, 1995; see the previous blog entry), there will be much that is familiar here, but as Coleman points out, there has also been an evolution in his methods as he constantly seeks improvement. Those who own his other books will want the updates provided here. There are new varieties of vegetables, new techniques for gardening and building greenhouses, new tools and new resources.

The thing that fascinates me most about Coleman is that we have here a practitioner who is also very much historically aware and steeped in the literature of his craft. I would read and buy his books for their historical summaries (so aptly labeled "historical inspiration") and bibliographies (especially the annotated "historical reading list") alone, as much as for the lists of tried and true vegetable varieties and gardening techniques. Every last page has both instruction and inspiration.

I am not ready (yet) to launch a full-time operation, so some of what Coleman provides is beyond my ability to incorporate. For example, I can admire his greenhouse design, but I'm more likely to implement his "quick hoops" (maybe even this fall). His lists of succession planting dates and the yearly schedule are quite helpful in a suggestive way for those who would like to "go and do likewise." (And who wouldn't...like to go and do likewise?) And his gentle presentation of the more philosophical aspects of what he calls "deep-organic" gardening (a combination of local, sustainable, etc.) is winsome. Unlike many of the strident voices we hear today, Eliot Coleman's voice is one of experience tempered by the Maine winters. He knows whereof he speaks and he lets it permeate his writing. Thanks, Mr. Coleman, for sharing your gift with us.

The New Organic Grower

2009-03-21T08:57:00.001-07:00

Coleman, Eliot. The New Organic Grower.

I am continuously amazed by the depth of my own ignorance. After devouring a couple of Joel Salatin's books, I began searching for some of the works listed in his bibliography and cited by him as exemplary books on farming. Salatin is my new favorite author, so why not? Few of the books were available immediately from the Indianapolis Public Library, but I was able to put a hold (recall) on this one, Eliot Coleman's The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener (A gardener's supply book). Wow! I thought I had already been exposed to all of the great classics of Organic Gardening, but here is an author whose 30 years in the garden has been hiding from me since 1988, when this book was first published.

Simply stated, Coleman has perfected the kind of farming to which I aspire. He calls it "biological agriculture." Whatever. It is small scale. He claims that 5 acres is the "optimum" size. (For a couple; or 2.5 acres per adult family member. He claims that 100 people can be fed a year's worth of vegetables from 2.5 acres.) In other words, to borrow a phrase from Logsdon, Coleman farms at nature's pace and on a sustainable human scale. But Coleman is not stuck in the past. He learns from the past, certainly. He talks about how he first went to school on pre-1940 publications (the sorts of books we are re-publishing in digital form at tumbledownfarm.com), but he also uses the latest technology (best crafted hand tools, small implements, simplest techniques) when it offers the best option for maximizing vegetable growth. What a breath of fresh air! Here is an author who recognizes and makes use of the best ideas of pre-industrial agriculture in a 21st century world.

Many of the basic topics Coleman covers are already familiar to me, so I was able to skim the sections related to cover crops, crop rotations, and the like. But I read slowly, and then re-read the sections on soil fertility (I can never get enough of techniques for improving the soil), especially farm-generated fertility, soil blocks (something I'll definitely try now), and pests (something I haven't paid enough attention to in the past). Eliot is especially known for season extension (in fact, he has a whole 'nuther book on the subject, Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long). Perhaps best, Coleman offers a full bibliography of "contemporary" and "classic" books and articles related to organic gardening and farming, and a list of gardening tool suppliers. It is a breath of fresh air to hear an author who clearly has so much to offer, paying homage to these written sources. And it is great to see a practitioner who clearly also appreciates books and reading. His stories about monthly trips to the State University Library were inspiring. Perhaps the best news that Eliot offers is his example that farming needn't be anti-intellectual. He has learned from many sources and he shares freely what he has learned.

What is missing? In a book that so inspires people to "go and do likewise," it would have been helpful to see a real budget. When you say that a model is economically viable, you have some responsibility to support the claim with dollar amounts for expenses and revenues so that we can see whether there appears to be some slight of hand.

Need I say it? Get the book, you'll not regret it!

You Can Farm, Part II

2009-02-28T13:56:00.000-08:00

You Can Farm: the entrepreneur's guide to start and succeed in a farm enterprise, 1998, Polyface, Inc., Swoope, Virginia.

Part I of the review is available in the previous blog post.

Well, the week is up and I've finished the book, despite the frenetic schedule, so here are my thoughts on pp. 208-453. A lot of what what Salatin has to say is "common sense," the sort of things we would have learned in school if our schools had taught us the basics well. For example, Salatin emphasizes the usefulness of brainstorming for problem solving and for reaching our potential and how to prioritize the items in our lists based on critical judgment (Chapter 20). Salatin has a keen sense of what is important and he get's his points across in a memorable way, as in "Señor Salatin, you must poot eet doowwn," which is the 1st rule and most important commandment of accounting (Chapter 32). Perhaps the most important of these chapters for me was the one on creating a good "Filing System" (Chapter 33). There Salatin explains a filing system from his school debate team competition days, one that looks great to me, so good in fact that I'll adopt it this week. I cannot believe I got a PhD and something so basic as a good system for filing escaped me! On the other hand, if you've had as many "communications" and "writing" classes as I've had, you will want to skim or skip Chapter 36 on "Communication."

So far I've only touched on the sections that have to do with running a business. They could be applied with equal impact to any business and to many other aspects of life, not just to farming. And then there are the sections that apply more narrowly to farming: "Grass is the Center" (Chapter 22), "Biodiversity" (Chapter 23), "Water" (Chapter 24), and "Letting Animals Do the Work" (Chapter 25). There are others; these are just examples.

And what would a good review be without at least one significant disagreement between the reviewer and the author? My disagreement with Salatin is about his approach to "Soil Fertility" (Chapter 27; see also Chapter 30, "Reducing Costs"). A summary of my own understanding of soil fertility is available at the main Tumbledown Farm web site. Using Salatin's "debating" analogy, he has taken the affirmative side in this chapter in a debate regarding soil fertility and must offer both a case (what's wrong with the current system) and a plan (a solution). I think Salatin leaves something to be desired in both his case and his plan. First, his case largely dismisses the usefulness of knowing the NPK analysis of one's soil (pp. 326-328). While I agree with Salatin that industrial agriculture has been too narrowly focused on soil chemistry (the problem), I disagree that ignorance of the chemical soil analysis makes any sense as part of a good solution. I do agree that the usual response of a new gardener or farmer to the standard soil analysis is often wrong-headed and expensive--and usually not long lasting. It is wrong for all sorts of reasons (including expense) to pour fertilizers--even organic fertilizers--on the ground in a narrow attempt to address NPK deficiencies and create an "optimal" fertility that is really only a narrow measure of NPK. But knowing (for example) the pH of your soil can help you decide between the various approaches to soil building that are available (including the slow methods advocated by Salatin). There are better and worse ways to build soil, depending on the existing condition of the soil. Adopting a soil-building method that increases the acidity of an already too acid soil would not be wise. Nor would it be wise to plant potassium gobbling crops where you know there is insufficient potassium. At the very least, even if the gardener or farmer does not seek to make rapid improvements in soil condition, whatever steps are taken to build the soil should be informed decisions. And that is where Salatin is most harmful in opinions. He is simply wrong that living organisms can create necessary elements out of nothing. And when you add to this his implicit endorsement of the opinion that classic chemical soil tests are "a scam" (p. 327), you come close to gardening malpractice. Classic chemical soil tests are not as unreliable as Salatin implies and soil chemicals (with the exception of nitrogen) cannot be produced from thin air. Even the release of elements from the soil that are present in forms unusable to plants can take place only in geological time, not human lifetimes.

All that having been said, Salatin's main prescription--lots of carbon material (brown plant material, especially sawdust and wood chips) combined with lots of nitrogen (green plant material and animal urine and manure)--is a winning combination. In a way, he's right even about this: it is simple and relatively inexpensive to grow your soil. NOTE: for a great reminder that humans produce nitrogenous waste too, check out "Yellow is the New Green."

So, to quote Salatin again, why not START NOW! No need to wait another year to begin where I am with what I have. This year we'll add "pastured poultry" (quail) and livestock (pastured rabbits) to our backyard lineup, so that we begin to use those grass strips between the garden rows for something more profitable than a mud-less walking path. (See our garden plan for details.) So, why not check out your own copy of Salatin's "classic" and start your own backyard farm? Why not "Start Now!"?

I checked You Can Farm out of the library, so I have to return it tomorrow, but I know I'll eventually purchase a copy to add it to my library. It is too useful to leave to the vagaries of the recall system. In the meantime, I've already purchased the next book on the reading list...because I cannot get it from the library:

You Can Farm, Part I

2009-02-22T12:38:00.000-08:00

You Can Farm: the entrepreneur's guide to start and succeed in a farm enterprise, 1998, Polyface, Inc., Swoope, Virginia.

I couldn't wait another week, by which time I will have devoured the book despite an altogether frenetic schedule, to begin writing the review. I am convinced that Joel Salatin will be my new favorite author, close on the heels of Wendell Berry and Gene Logsdon. Part I of the review will cover chapters 1-19 (pp. 1-207 of 453).

The book reminds me a lot of Harvey W. Wiley's The Lure of the Land: Farming after Fifty, but almost a full century later! But the same sense of sanity and full awareness of the difficulties, and possibilities, of starting in farming are in evidence in both. The great thing about Salatin, of course, is that you do not have worry that the differences are too great between the previous century and this one or that changes have mitigated the usefulness of the advice. The book is full of inspiration and hope...and, have I said it enough? Realism!

Having just read Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose, I was pleased to see a "practical farmer" recognize and prioritize the Vision! You've got to be able to see it and dream it to realize it. Chapter One leads with this theme, followed by the importance of Story (chapter 2) and the Right Philosophy (chapter 3). In business parlance (even the not-for-profit sort that I'm associated with), this is all about Mission and Vision work. Salatin is right to emphasize it, prioritize it, and return to it as a theme throughout the book.

Chapter 4, "Do It Now," has to be my favorite (so far)! The point is not to wait for the perfect opportunity to start farming, because the perfect opportunity never comes. There are corollaries, of course, one of which doesn't show up until Chapter 13 (watch out for the irony), "Acquiring Land." The point of Chapter 13 (and some of Chapter 14) is not to wait until you can acquire land to begin farming. Land acquisition comes after success, as a result of success, not before. As Salatin says (p. 158), "Acquiring wealth...is an offensive posture and is generally best done by renting." Land investments are made by the wealthy in order to preserve wealth, which is a defensive posture. Man does that ever make sense, especially in today's mortgage mess. Much of what Salatin recommends would have been a powerful antidote to the excesses of the past few years and would have saved anyone who followed it from the sorts of financial ruin we are seeing now. At any rate, do not wait until you can purchase the picture perfect farm to begin farming...or you'll never begin. ...and above all, do not mortgage yourself deeply to buy the farm or you'll be back in your (other) day job sooner than you think.

Round these out with chapters on Surveying Your Situation (Chapter 5, something like a SWOT list emerges), along with lists of the worst (Chapter 9) and best (Chapter 10) "centerpiece" agricultural/farming opportunities, and additional advice (Top 10 lists of all sorts), makes the first half of this book indispensable to anyone wanting to farm on any scale.

One of the most sobering aspects, for me, was the straight talk about age and farming (also a big aspect of Wiley's book, as the subtitle suggests). I'm not getting any younger. One thing Salatin is surely saying is that I'll need to find a young partner if I ever entertain the notion of quitting my day job to go into farming full time.

So, why not START NOW! No need to wait another year to begin where I am with what I have. ...but I'll at least wait until I've read the second half of the book! Why not check out your own copy and see if you can beat me to the end?

Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing

2009-02-11T09:05:00.000-08:00

I was originally attracted to Seeking Awareness In American Nature Writing by the list of names on the cover: Henry Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez. What's not to like, right?! Wrong. This book is about the psychology of nature writing, about the psychology of the various authors previously listed. Don't waste your time on this academic reflection on the words of great writers. Go read the great writers. Has it been a while since you read Thoreau? Berry? (Not Barry.) Then ad fontes. It is too early still to do a whole lot in the garden, so you have some reading time left, but too little time to spend it here. That's my two cents. You may have a different opinion.

The Last of the Husbandmen: A Novel of Farming Life

2009-01-22T13:06:00.000-08:00

The Last of the Husbandmen by Gene Logsdon, Ohio University Press, 2008.

I much prefer Logsdon's non-fiction writing to his fiction. In fact, I re-read his non-fiction books multiple times, perhaps the greatest compliment I could pay to his writing, since I hardly ever re-read anything in any genre of writing. (Nor do I watch many movies a second time.)

Among my Logsdon favorites (roughly in order) are:

Perhaps my favorite of all time, a classic:
The Contrary Farmer (Real Goods Independent Living Book)

The first edition of this book that is scheduled soon to be released in a second edition: Small-Scale Grain Raising, Second Edition: An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains, for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers

And, of course, Living at Nature's Pace: Farming and the American Dream

That having been said, The Last of the Husbandmen is a good, quick read. There are some wickedly humorous scenes and accompanying dialogue, and some poignant moments (though most of these cross over a little too much for my taste into the sappy and syrupy). Some of it comes across as preachy, something I can take better in a non-fiction than in a fiction setting. Mostly, though, Logsdon knows rural Ohio in his bones and it shows in thoroughly likable characters and pretty good verisimilitude, even if he's telling a parable about the old ways of living and caring for the soil at a time of utter disruption and upheaval.

If you have never read Logsdon, start somewhere else. If you've read everything he's ever written twice, here's a great new story that you'll gobble up like biscuits and sorghum molasses.

A Sand County Almanac

2008-12-15T05:28:00.000-08:00

One of these days I'll write a full review of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac (Outdoor Essays & Reflections), but for now, with Christmas fast approaching, let me just say that even if the text were not a classic (1949), this combination of text and photos by Michael Sewell from Oxford University Press (2001), with Introductory essay by Kenneth Brower, could be carried by the photographs alone. The design and production values are worthy of the subject. This is a must for those who appreciate what Leopold said and who also want some sense of what Leopold saw.

A great photo book for putting under the Christmas tree!

The Gift of Good Land

2008-12-15T04:40:00.000-08:00

Wendell Berry's The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural is the 1981 publication (North Point Press, San Francisco) of a collection of essays hailing mostly from the 1970s, the environmental crises of which are a prelude to the same and similar questions now--and crises that have mostly only been exacerbated, not improved, by the passage of time.

It goes almost without saying that Wendell Berry's reputation as a thinker and writer was made by such essays and that the essays are well worth the reading, even now, for their obvious attention to the craft of writing. It is enjoyable, not just informative, to read Berry. This collection in particular was a followup to Berry's critically acclaimed The Unsettling of America, which is indeed where readers should start, if they haven't already, in reading Berry's work.

About the Essays:

"An Agricultural Journey in Peru" is a travel essay in the spirit of F.H. King's Farmers of Forty Centuries: Or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan. Instead of eastern traditional modes of farming, Berry focuses on what can be learned from traditional Peruvian potato farmers, especially what can be learned of preserving soil using terraces for hillside farming. The contrast between the traditional modes of preserving the soil and the methods promulgated by the "International Hill Land Symposium" (the subject of chapter 4) is obvious to Berry, and therefore also to the reader. Throw in such classics as "Horse-Drawn Tools and the Doctrine of Labor Saving" (Berry thinks labor saving leads to poor employment, as in a dearth of good work to do well.) or "Agricultural Solutions for Agricultural Problems" (i.e., industrial solutions to agricultural problems are no solutions at all) or "The Reactor and the Garden" (no, nuclear energy is no safer a bet now than it was when Berry first wrote the essay) or "A Good Scythe" (for anyone whose ears hurt after using a gas powered 'weed eater') and you've more than recovered the cost of the book.

Better yet, save some trees and check it out from your local library. I just returned it to ours for safe keeping. (I'm running out of shelf space.)

The book does include Berry's usual paeans to the Amish way of living. These are available elsewhere in many of Berry's non-fictional books. From Berry's own Foreword, the most compelling reason to read the book is for its presentation of many "exemplary practices" in farming and living. That's surely reason enough!

Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal

2008-11-02T13:35:00.000-08:00

Salatin, Joel. Everything I Want to Do is Illegal. Polyface, Inc. Swoope, VA, 2007.

What a bracing breath of fresh air! I do not know where I first read about Joel Salatin and his "Farm of Many Faces," but whoever first recommended him did not do justice to Salatin's unique voice and perspective. I had devoured 100 pages--laughing and crying, sympathizing and shouting in anger--before I was rudely interrupted and had to set the book aside. Without the interruption, I am sure I would have finished all 326 pages (and perhaps even re-read it) in a single sitting.

So, what makes Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front so different?

First, it is Salatin's unerring good sense. His BS detector is set on high alert and he's able to point out the obvious contradictions between the food safety laws as they are written and carried out and real food safety. Time after time, with Mark Twain (or Andy Griffith "Aw shucks" style) humor, Salatin eviscerates the bureaucratic opposition and shows how it just makes good sense to let small-time farmers process meat (and other foods) and sell locally--e.g., to sell raw milk, unwashed eggs, and cured bacon; to invite visitors (and youngsters and interns) for short and extended visits to the farm; to market and sell collaboratively (so that a farmer can sell what his neighbor has produced); build a house of less than 900 square feet; and the like. The problem is that each and every one of these actions is illegal.

Second, it is Salatin's experience. He is a farmer. And that experience shows with blood on every page and the scars to show for the bureaucratic battles. You trust a guy who has done battle with the food police this many times and won--or at least battled to a draw.

Get the book. It is a fabulous read. It needs to be on the shelf of everyone who is even thinking about getting into farming. Salatin will knock some sense into your head!

For the Health of the Land

2008-10-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

Leopold, Aldo. For the Health of the Land. Previously Unpublished Essays and Other Writings Edited by J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle.

Aldo Leopold was most famously the author of A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There (1949)--and rightly so. There--on the sandy Wisconsin acres that he called his own--the naturalist, activist conservationist, progressive preservationist invited the world to walk with him, letting eyes, ears, and mind traverse the land as the earth traced its annual orbit. The essays gathered here are clearly akin to those and speak with the same authorial voice.

What amused and satisfied me most was Leopold's definition of a farmer: "anyone 'who determines the plants and animals with which he lives'" (p. 10, Introduction). By that definition, happily, even I, the hapless Tumbledown Farmer, am a real farmer. So are we all. Thus, according to Leopold, you and I have a stake in and responsibility for conservation. The editors of this collection have arranged it to demonstrate a trajectory and progression in Leopold's thought toward this very conclusion. Leopold moves from advice to farmers about how to grow a "wild crop of quail, pheasants, and other farm game" to a concern with improving the aesthetic appearance of farms. In other words, the progression is from utilitarian to artistic and beautiful. Leopold's thought moves from private ownership and economic utility to artistry and "useless" beauty. Leopold's thought moves from private ownership to corporate (community) responsibility and from the preservation of diversity (which, in today's context, seems eerily prescient) by conserving all of the individual species now available (e.g., in the essay entitled "What is a Weed?") to the integrity of the whole, or what Leopold calls the land-health ethic. But of course that is the point. Truth is beauty--and when you are talking about the natural world, the whole is worth more than merely the sum of its parts. And it takes concern for the whole--not just for stopping runoff and erosion, or for economic profit, or saving a particular species.

Leopold almost makes me imagine that it will be possible in our little suburban addition to re-introduce quail. If every "farmer" in the addition were to let pasture grow at the margins and in the collective easements that connect each property to the others--and if we worked together to add cover (there is, after all, a row of white pines on the edge of my property), to constrain feral cats, to feed in winter. Just imagine the "wildlife refuge" this little suburban enclave might support.

Maybe one day we'll join Leopold in writing an almanac of the suburban housing addition.

The Virtues of Ignorance

2008-09-09T16:40:00.000-07:00

The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge (Culture of the Land) (A Series in the new Agrarianism) Edited by Bill Vitek and Wes Jackson. The University Press of Kentucky, 2008.

The question of the book is this: "Since we're billions of times more ignorant than knowledgeable, why not go with our long suit and have an ignorance-based worldview?" In other words, why not try humility in the face of our incurable ignorance rather than hubris-ic bravado. This is a new-old epistemology, as several of the authors point out--at least as old as Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates and the rest, maybe even as old as the Garden of Eden. The question is pondered, chewed like cud, by a "who's who" of thinkers and garden philosophers from a wide variety of disciplines and professions: Wendell Berry, Robert Perry, Richard D. Lamm, Conn Nugent, Raymond H. Dean, Steve Talbott, Anna L. Peterson, Paul G. Heltne, Charles Marsh, Peter G. Brown, Strachan Donnelley, Robert Root-Bernstein, Marlys Hearst Witte, Peter Crown, Michael Bernas, Charles L. Witte, Herb Thompson, Jon Jensen, Joe Marocco, and Craig Holdrege.

In other words, this is a book of collected essays based on a symposium held in June 2004 in Matfield Green, Kansas, and suffers all of the weaknesses such books incur, especially an unevenness of quality, abrupt changes in the level and focus of the discourse, and a tendency toward successive monologues rather than true dialog.

That having been said, the book's subject is timely and vital. As I write, the Republican standard bearer and Republican VP candidate are priming every audience they meet with chants of "drill, baby, drill"--hardly a humble stance toward the consumption of fossil fuels or the dangers of global warming. Palin, the GOP VP candidate, still doubts the science of global warming. This would be fine if her stance were one of humility and reverence for life (all of life, not merely the unborn individual human life) in the face of her ignorance, but instead she insists on exhausting the natural world now and squandering on the present generation what it took nature "geologic time" to build.

It is also ironic that I am posting this review on the eve of the first operation of the Large Hadron Collider. As the New York Times so cleverly opines: Fingers Crossed, Physicists Are Ready for Collider to Roll. Why "fingers crossed"? Because once again we humans are willing to roll the dice with nature in order to increase our knowledge. We love to open Pandora's box again and again, to eat every now and again of the tree of knowledge--to take a chance on blowing up the world for the sake of a little science. (Collider Article 2, Collider Article 3). The problem with science as it is--with the knowledge-based world view we have inherited--writes Peter G. Brown is "the dictum that moral judgments have no place in science." The question is always whether we can, not whether we should. Without moral judgments and without a basis for such morality in our respect for nature, we cannot ever answer whether we should. In the case of the collider, for example, whether dangerous black holes emerge or not (something you cannot know before you smash a few particles), is it moral to spend $8 billion, not counting the toll on natural resources, to create such a monster for the benefit of rarefied science? Is it? On what moral basis did we decide to act in such blatant disregard for a reverence for life?

The authors of this book urge humility, a recognition that "We do not own the world but are simply voyagers on it along with millions of other species--many extinct, many yet to come--with whom we share both heritage and destiny." (Brown)

If we want to avoid a tumbledown fate for our planet, one that equals the tumbledown state of our farms, we would do well to heed their advice.

I highly recommend this very difficult read, for goodness sake.

Voluntary Simplicity

2008-07-22T07:29:00.001-07:00

Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich (Revised edition)

The first edition of this book was published in 1981 and it is as relevant today as it was in the decade of the "Bonfire of the Vanities." We hardly lead simpler lives today than we did then, even with the high price of gas and the sudden renewal of interest in "stay-cations" as opposed to vacations. While I agree with the basic premise that we should live deliberate, intentional, purposeful, simple lives--I wanted something more than the philosophical generalizing that I found in the book. Maybe it is me; maybe it is my particular situation--but I was looking for something more from a book with such a sterling reputation. While it is true that "the particular expression of simplicity is a personal matter," it isn't very helpful for the creation of a simple life of my own just to say so. I want many examples of simple lives well lived, not just generalizations about the imperative to live simply. I suspect, even with this "personal matter," that we can be more specific. I think a simple life is by definition agrarian and therefore I find much better descriptions (and simpler, with less philosophical gobbledygook) of such a life in the works of Wendell Berry and Gene Logsdon. This book, now something of a cult classic and inspiration for others (you'll see it in many a bibliography, so it is something you "should" read), is worth the time if you can find it, and if you can find the book in the library. I don't intend to purchase a copy for myself, but I may stand in line at the library to recall it and read it again in the future--and maybe then I'll find something more to like.

The Unforeseen Wilderness, Spoiled

2008-06-23T17:47:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by Tumbledown Farmer

In my review of the Unforeseen Wilderness by Wendell Berry, I mentioned the entrance to Clifty Falls and the smoke stacks that made havoc of our lungs while we were there. The weather kept the clouds socked in low to the ground and the prevailing wind was straight from the stacks into the gorge. Yuck!

The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky's Red River Gorge

2008-06-23T14:19:00.001-07:00

The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky's Red River Gorge, by Wendell Berry with photos by Ralph Eugene Meatyard. Shoemaker & Hoard, 1991.

I read this book back in April while on Spring Break with the family at Clifty Falls State Park (YouTube video of Clifty Falls) just west of Madison, Indiana. The book was a good and constant companion to the rocky cliffs, steep climbs, winding trails and waterfalls of the springtime park. The natural beauty accompanied by the words of Wendell Berry was a much needed respite. The book has the high quality writing that I've come to expect of Wendell Berry, not his best work by far, but appropriate to the physical setting and as always provocative in the best sort of way. The book was written to "save Kentucky's Red River Gorge from destruction"--i.e., to prevent the damming of the river and the drowning of the gorge--and that utilitarian motive (having been written for a useful purpose) casts a shadow and adds an artifice to the literary work that is rarely seen in Berry's poetry and fiction. That and the distance the book travels from Berry's usual topic--good land poorly farmed--makes for some dis-ease, at least for this reader.

Despite the minor criticism (that the book, though well suited to what it is, isn't what I had hoped or even as good as the greatest of Berry's works), the book offers descriptions and photos of the Red River Gorge that show it at its best (though I have never seen it). I imagine from Meatyard's photos and Berry's prose that it is the same sort of place that Clifty Falls once was, before Clifty Falls became overrun by the tourism (I was one of the tourists) that comes with the development of a place for "recreation," the establishment of a lodge and "easy trails" and paved roads along the gorge. Clifty Falls also suffers from having a coal fired power plant at its entrance, the stacks of which obscure the view and the smoke from which is enough to make even a healthy lung wheeze. (See the next post for the view from a cell phone camera.)

It is when the beautiful simplicity of the prose matches the austerity of what is described, the frugality of the words matching the extravagance of the "trout lilies, rue anemones, trailing arbutus" that Berry is at his finest. Those--and the places where he skewers the tourist-eye-view, regrets both the organizations that oppose and defend the dam, and that would destroy and preserve the gorge, and does battle with the likes of the mindset of the Army Corps of Engineers--are that places where the Wendell Berry we appreciate most comes into view.

Not the best book in the Berry bibliography. If you've never read Berry, don't start with this book. But if you are taking a tourist trip to see a "natural wonder" some day soon, pack this little reminder of sanity along. Oh the difference he'll make in the way you view the rocks and trees!

Salad Days!

2008-05-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

We are eating high off the hog here at Tumbledown Farm.

From Cooking and E…

These May days are full of anticipation. About the only thing that hits the plate directly from the garden at the moment is lettuce.

From Broccoli

[Photo: A few mini-heads of Romain Lettuce / Paris White Cos sitting mid-way down a row of broccoli. Eating the whole bunch just before it forms the distinctive Romain lettuce center will give you a good substitute for iceberg. My family will not eat mesculun or any spring leaf lettuce mix because “it is bitter and it doesn’t crunch.” So, we have to plant what they’ll eat!]

Maybe a few baby onions (or scallions) can be thrown in for good measure, but anything that did not over-winter or get a head start inside under the lights is still too small to eat!

From Onions

(Waiting, waiting, waiting for those first beets, radishes, some spinach, kale, kohlrabi, and the like.) Sometime later this month we’ll have more than we can eat. For now, though, we dine on a little bit of lettuce and onions. Next year I’ll learn how to use hoop supported row covers to begin planting about 10 days earlier. I want to be feasting from the garden by the first week of May!

Of course, there is always a little asparagus volunteering here and there. [The birds plant it for us. Got some new this year, sprouting beside the privet someone unwitting planted as an ornamental.]
And we’re eating some rhubarb.

From Rhubarb

This year I paid $9 at Menard’s for 3 sets of 3 very dead looking rhubarb roots (9 altogether…that’s $1/root by my calculation) on the clearance shelf on the very last day they would sell it. I figured since Gurneys and the other mail order places charge $7.95 per root plus shipping, if even two of the roots showed signs of life I would be ahead. …and just look what happened!

From Rhubarb

The bacon was purchased at regular (inflated) market prices. (Maybe with just an acre more?…) But the free-range eggs for our lunch-time omelet were provided by a friend. Sometimes it just pays to be a Tumbledown Farmer!

Tumbledown Farm

Planting an Urban Farm: The Time Is Here

2008-03-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

There has been an unrelenting flood of news about land prices lately–moving in opposite directions, up and down at the same time–the momentum and tempo of which has been steadily increasing:

1) Foreclosures and property abandonment in cities and suburbs are at an all time high, while prices for development property/lots and single-family housing are falling (Targeted: Housing Blight ; City to develop own plan to revive neighborhoods).

2) The value of farmland is also at an all time high (largest one-year jump in 30 years, Farmland prices continue to rise; from $3500 to $4000 per acre in the past two years, Grain boom may spark rural revival; Rising prices will boost state’s economy, but consumers will have to pay more for goods).

At the same time that the city is asking “What can we do with all those abandoned homes?” (Olgen Williams, Deputy Mayor for Neighborhoods, to Star reporter Ted Evanoff), farmers are looking for land to buy or rent. As the NYTimes reports, there is big competition for new farm acreage at a time when the rest of the economy seems to be in a tail spin: “[a]t a moment when much of the country is contemplating recession, farmers are flourishing.” The 7000 foreclosures and abandonments in the city of Indianapolis alone are resulting in decreased tax base, a shortage of affordable housing (ironically), health and safety issues, crime and squatting. It seems to me that a better quality of life in city neighborhoods could be had by turning abandoned property into farmland and gardens. The good news is that agribusiness will not be able to even park, much less use, the John Deere 630T, 530 hp, with its 330 gallon fuel tank, on a lot of .1 or .3 acres. Using those city lots for urban farms and gardens would require shovels, hoes, rakes and other sustainable equipment. With “inputs” (chemical fertilizers) doubling in cost this past year, there would probably be less temptation to overuse those too.

I think the confluence of these two economic forces presents an opportunity for the niche urban micro farm.

It seems that I am not alone in thinking this is a good solution to some of our most intractable problems. Purdue Extension-Marion County announced in January that it had received a $10,000 grant from the Efroymson Fund, a CICF fund, for a pilot Urban Farm Project. In addition to problems of urban blight, The Urban Farm Project will address food insecurity on the Indianapolis near-east side. (Not far from Tumbledown Farm.) The community that this urban farm project will serve lost its only neighborhood full-service grocery store in the spring of 2007. Area food pantries have been stretched beyond their limit to respond. (As is also the case in Johnson county.) According to the extension newsletter, The Urban Farm Project “will help provide fresh produce by planting chemical-free urban gardens on two or three vacant neareastside lots. The produce generated from these lot gardens will be donated to a nearby food pantry for distribution to the community’s needy.” At the same time, the project “will also be an apprenticeship program for local high school students.” What a combination! (For more info about the Indy Urban Farm, contact Matthew Jose, Urban Garden Program Asst.)

It seems to me that this sort of model might also work in the “for-profit” world. Muhammad Yunus, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, may show us the way with his banker-to-the-poor ideas about doing good by doing well in a distributed, small-scale way.

With food prices rising because of the spike in the cost of agribusiness commodities, I have been thinking about expanding Tumbledown Farm, ever so slightly. There is a little 40X136 lot (oh, about .13 acres, not enough for the big guys to notice, return on investment too small and too slow) about 9 miles from us that is listed with MIBOR for $2500. I bet it could be had for $2,000 in cash, and in three years could be producing $500 per year in filberts. A soil test, a little manual labor, and all the hazelnuts you can eat. (Or, for a little more time and labor, strawberries or raspberries, or vegetables of all sorts.)

What think you? Time for an urban micro farm? Want a share in this little agricultural and sociological experiment?

Tumbledown Farm

The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing's Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living

2008-02-15T07:44:00.000-08:00

The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing's Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living. Schocken Books, Inc., 1989.

This book is a combination of Living the Good Life (1954, 1970, 1982) and Continuing the Good Life (1979), with a new introduction by Helen Nearing. The first book is an accounting for 20 years (from 1932) lived in the backwoods of Vermont. The second book (bound in this instance together with the first) is an accounting from 1952 on of a similar experiment in living on a farm in Harborside, Maine (Cape Rosier). It is clear from the beginning that these are not "simple folk" forced into a simpler life of necessity (at least not physical necessity), but a couple who are seeking together a way of removing themselves from the larger society marked by World War and a rise in fascism to practice pacifism, vegetarianism, and collectivism. These are "professors" out to teach as much as they are to live well. They sought a life that would be 50% subsistence provision of their needs directly through their own physical "labor" and 50% "leisure" ("research, travelling, writing, speaking and teaching"). Obviously, their goals were more complicated than mine. I am simply interested in the parts of their experiment that show The Good Life to be also the sustainable, small-scale life, by which I mean something more like Duane Elgin's voluntary simplicity. (Voluntary Simplicity, Revised Edition: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich) I am interested in their goal to eat from the work of their own hands, and to escape the traps of economic complicity in a high-consumption culture. I am less interested in the Nearings' social experiment (the collectivism), and more interested in their vegetable garden. My life is such that I'll not be able to escape the suburban landscape any time soon, so I'll not have the Nearings' 65 acres with which to experiment in living the good life. And even if I could, I would do it differently. The Nearings didn't keep animals for any purpose, especially not for eating, so I am loathe to call what they did traditional, small-scale farming. But I am interested in their techniques for subsistence "farming" without the use of chemical fertilizers or animals and animal products. (What?! No manure? Is it really possible to "improve" the soil without chemicals or animal manures?)

Should I ever be in the position to start from scratch on new land, I will certainly consult their chapters on building a house. And already, I have benefitted from their advice for extending the gardening year and for preserving garden produce. And almost they have persuaded me that vegetarianism is the way to go. Perhaps we should say that my farm will be less animal-intensive and animal centric for having read their work. But their chapters on living in community do little for me. I wonder whether they were simply too "serious" and "intentional" to recognize the community that already exists in churches, civic organizations, gardening organizations and the like. It seems to me that what they desired in the way of community was too confining, certainly for free-spirited Vermonters, but for anyone with a sense of individuality and independence. Though I do not go in for total withdrawal from society and complete self-sufficiency (undesirable and impossible), I do think that the indepence of spirit that marks citizens of the U.S. is a good thing that can be encouraged for the sake of many of the ideals that the Nearings embrace for living the good life.

In short, I recommend the book for its chapters on homestead buildings and construction, for its sections on gardening and diet, and for its overall spirit of voluntary living, its voluntary simplicity.

Gardening Economy and Non-Cooperation

2008-02-11T13:10:00.000-08:00

A Gardening Economy: The Cost of Non-Cooperation

I’ve been reading a little too much of Mahatma Gandhi lately, especially his Freedom’s Battle: Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation, which is available on the Kindle for $.99 (free on the internet). It struck me as I read again Gandhi’s advocacy of “non-cooperation” as an alternative to surrender or complicity, that non-cooperation may be our best and only option against the multinational agricultural corporations, the behemoth colonial powers of our day. Agribusiness requires our cooperation to survive. ADM and the others require our cooperation to maintain their near monopoly status. Their power is truly dependent on our continuous cooperation with them in the purchase of processed foods.

And unless I’m very much mistaken, gardening is truly our most natural and most effective expedient for refusing to maintain their rule. We must simply refuse our cooperation; withdraw it. We can start by reducing or eliminating processed foods from our diet and buying whole foods from local farmers. Some fear that, if we were to succeed (and they very much doubt that we will), this would produce the total collapse of the farm economy. But as Gandhi predicted of Indian self-government, long before there could be a total collapse, we would have forged strong ties with local producers and robust local means of distribution. Others protest that this sort of non-cooperation is a negative path, that it will destroy the cheap food on which our high standard of living is based. But, as Gandhi pointed out, non-cooperation with the multinational corporation means greater cooperation among ourselves and “greater mutual dependence.”

So, what will non-cooperation cost me this year? Besides some time and labor, it has already cost $77.20. (Watch the garden budget this year to see what I purchase and what the garden yields are. We’ll weigh everything as we harvest and record the value of the produce by comparison to the cost of fruit and vegetables at the local Meier Supermarket.)

Here’s what we’ve bought so far: Goliath Hybrid Pepper Seed (pkt-30, $2.60), Big Beef Hybrid Tomato Seed (pkt-30, $2.10), Early Girl Hybrid Tomato Seed (pkt-30, $2.20), Besweet 2020 Edible Soybean Seed (pkt-2 oz., $1.95), Red Ace Hybrid Beet Seed (pkt-300, $1.90), Super Blend Hybrid Broccoli Seed (pkt-200, $1.80, 33% each of Liberty, Pirate, and Major), Alchiban Hybrid Eggplant Seed (pkt-30, $2.00), Sweet Basil Seed (pkt-100, $1.50, Italian Large Leaf Basil), Long Standing Cilantro or Coriander Seed (pkt-100, $1.50), Kossak Giant Hybrid Kohlrabi Seed (pkt-50, $2.25), Paris White Cos Lettuce Seed (pkt-5 grams, $1.55, Romaine Lettuce), Evergreen Bunching Scallions Seed (pkt-250, $1.55, White Bunching Onion), Hungarian Yellow Wax Pepper Seed (pkt-25, $1.55, Hot Banana Pepper), Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach Seed (pkt-7 grams, $1.50), Dwarf American Hazelnut Plant (4 plants, $18.50), Sparkle Strawberry (25 plants, $8.75), Nugget Hops Plant (1 plant, $8.25), Thuricide (8 oz concentrate, $8.25, Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki), Early Bird Garden Tomato Seed (pkt-25, $0.00), Early Bird Garden Pea Seed (pkt-1 oz, $0.00, medium-vined garden pea variety), Early Bird Garden Cucumber Seed (pkt-25, $0.00, Fancy Green Slicer), Early Bird Garden Bean (pkt-1 oz, $0.00), Early Bird Garden Sweet Corn (pkt-1 oz., $0.00, hybrid yellow sweet). The last few, the ones labeled “early bird,” are “experimental varieties” included in the R.H. Shumway’s shipment as a reward for ordering early and ordering more than a minimal number of items. This year I bought the whole lot from Shumway. I’ll report later how their seeds and plants performed. Shipping was $7.50.

A few of these items require explanation. First, the Thuricide. I hate to put any sort of pesticide on the garden, but Bt appears to be, by every account, organic and environmentally friendly.

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It has a very narrow use–the destruction of cabbage moth caterpillars–and will be used by me only to take care of extreme cases, where total vegetable loss is a possibility. Think I’m kidding? Look at the photos below of my first attempt a few years back to grow broccoli. And our family loves broccoli!

Another oddity is the hops plant. With the hops I intend to make my own dried yeast for bread baking. And, of course, Hazelnuts (or Filberts) are about the only nuts that can be grown on a small suburban lot and still allow room for all the strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries and a vegetable garden! So, stay tuned, we have a lot of growing to do on this non-cooperative micro-farm in 2008!

Tumbledown Farm

Farming for Self-Sufficiency: Independence on a Five-Acre Farm

2008-02-01T12:40:00.000-08:00

Farming for Self-Sufficiency Independence on a 5 Acre Farm, John and Sally Seymour (Introduction by Mildred Loomis, The School of Living, Freeland, Maryland). Schocken Books, NY 1973.

"Give any man, anywhere in the world, his fair share of earth's surface, and--if he survives one harvest--he and family need never be hungry again." (p. 14)

In 1973, only seven years after I was born, already the basic structural problems for early 21st century society from industrial farming had been mostly identified and articulated: "depletion and erosion and disease were resulting from the chemical-pesticide regime and the commercial, mono-crop agriculture, sometimes called agri-business." (p. 2) As Loomis says, the Seymours offer a report on twenty years of living differently, organically and sustainably, locally, what "in the 1920s, Ralph Borsodis had christened 'modern homesteading.'" (p. 12) The strength of the book is the depth of experience shared in it; there is a "lived-with" feel, in which the rougher bumps and hard edges of life have been worn down and softened by apprenticeship and long practice, so that knowledge and experience have yielded a weathered wisdom. There is much of common sense, age, and hard work here, the results of which are freely and graciously shared with good humor.

The writing is strong. Chapter titles are mostly simple, one-word affairs: "Horse," "Cow," "Pig," and the like. What the internet now has the potential to provide--a resource for reporting and exchange of information with others who are engaged in a similar way of living--was once the purview of journals and newspapers and paper journals like The Interpreter and books like this one by the Seymours. The problem with paper publishing is its limited availability. And the problem with a book is that it carries a single perspective and limited experience, however relevant and important that particular perspective may be. It takes many books of this sort to provide a truly ample view of the self-sufficient life as it might be lived in suburban central Indiana, for example. But the Seymours' books are out of print, available only at the library or via used book sales at Amazon and the like. The good news is that there is an explosion of such writing and sharing going on now in blogs, on websites, and via sharing of online videos (with gardening and farming "how to's"); it merely needs some coordination and careful vetting to be more useful. I suspect that we are on the verge of forming a network of small-scale, diversified, suburban "experiment stations," designing and carrying out tests, and reporting results. Together we can discover what works, what is sustainable, and what flops.

Most of all, the book is a guide book, a "how-to-live-on-the-land" book. As such, it offers complete instructions for every crop and livestock project imaginable (and some that aren't imaginable for people with an acre or less in the suburbs)--and offers recipes for cooking and preserving the food produced on the farm. There are some difficulties for the U.S./North American reader caused mainly by the difference in locale. The Seymours were British farmers, meaning that there are climatic, historical, social, and legal (then U.K., now EU) differences on the two sides of the pond. ...not to mention linguistic differences, especially in using the Queen's English. It is not insignificant that John Seymour had lived in both African and Indian villages at one time or another. Seymour draws on this cross-cultural experience to provide context for a "post-industrial self-sufficiency." What he intends is a partial self-sufficiency. John and Sally both worked for cash (but only a little cash) , thus not contributing much to "the development of the atom bomb," etc. I think this taking of matters into one's own life and hands is necessary in a world when it is so difficult to have a meaningful impact as an individual on such things as the 2007 Farm Bill. It is better to plant and grow and eat your own vegetables--and to buy them from local farmers' markets--than to wait for the Farm Bill to stop subsidizing industrial corn and soybean production. Seymour suggests that for periods of time, for two years perhaps, and with a severely restricted diet (all beans all the time!) one could, like Thoreau at Walden, approach self-sufficiency more nearly even than the Seymours or the Nearings or others of the more recent vintage of self-reliant individuals and couples.

Partly, the case for self-sufficiency is one of anticipated necessity. (See the 1970s Resources and Men, W.H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco; National Academy of Science and National Research Council of the U.S.) Fossil fuels will eventually be used up. Today we might add that Global Warming will catch up with us. But the case for self-sufficiency is also a case for enjoying life. It is enjoyable and rewarding and the diversity it enforces on the production of what we eat is more interesting and less boring--or can be--than industrial corn and soybeans (or Thoreau's all-bean diet). For the purpose of the book, it is clear that for the Seymours and their children, a "fair share of the earth's surface" was five acres for a family of six. Another part of self-sufficiency, even on as many as five acres, is managing one's affairs carefully. There are also, obviously, dietary restrictions. For example, in Indiana it will mean eating a substantial number of root crops in the winter. It wouldn't necessarily mean that in California.

There were some disappointments in the book for me. For example, Cobbett (a favorite of Seymour) says that you can keep a cow alive and productive on half an acre with Swedish turnips and cabbages--but Seymour recommends two acres per cow. I guess that rules me out of the cow business--even if the neighborhood association would grant me the livestock exception. And it is somewhat ironic in a book on self-sufficiency to find--as in books by the Nearings and others of similar genre--the nearly universal praise and high veneration of community. The desired community is defined usually as like-minded neighbors living in a similar manner. Of course I live in a community of like-minded neighbors, they just aren't minds like mine. There is too little land (1/2 acre or less usually) in a suburban lot and the community is like-minded in its consumerist focus, a way of living that is diametrically opposed to the values of self-sufficiency.

There are lots of things that can't be learnt from books or web sites, and plowing with a horse is one of them, but Seymour recommends a tome anyway. (George Ewart Evans, "The Horse in the Furrow," Faber and Faber) But, of course, it will be a blue moon--and hades frozen over besides--before I get a horse. Seymour points out the difficulty of finding implements for sale for horse plowing and harness for sale. In this country it is good to start your search in Amish country, where you'll have not only the opportunity to buy but also the opportunity to observe and learn.

Perhaps my favorite recipe, and one I'll try this summer (stay tuned to the website and Tumbledown Farmer's Blog) is the one for dried yeast. The yeast is used to make either bread or beer and appears on p. 148.

3 oz. hops
3 1/2 lbs rye flour
7 lbs corn or barley meal
1 gallon water

"Rub the hops and boil them in the water for half an hour. Strain. Stir in rye flour, then corn or barley meal. Knead and roll out very thin. Cut into circles with a tumbler and leave to dry hard in the sun. Wild yeast will infect the biscuits. To use it, crumble a biscuit and soak in warm water with sugar and salt in it and next day use as yeast."

Already familiar with the Seymour book? Why not try this one?

Planning the 2008 Garden

2008-01-23T13:20:00.000-08:00

It appears that I’ll be a Master Gardener eventually. But for now, I’m just an intern, donating the occasional day to worthy gardening causes and learning as I volunteer about other people’s garden questions in a hands-on, dirt-turning setting, but with the help of those who have been at this much longer. At any rate, I passed my MG test back in December, so I guess that means I can mostly be trusted not to kill too many plants.

But enough of all that. Time’s-a-wasting, and the 2008 gardening catalogs are on the table and I’m anxious to use some of what I’ve learned. It’s time to plan the 2008 garden! Stay tuned for the next few weeks and I’ll tell you what I ordered and why…and what it cost and I’ll post the photos as the seeds begin to sprout. You may notice this year that I’ve gone mostly for hybrids with a few heirlooms to supplement the lot, rather than plant all heirlooms. Why? Because I’ve begun to think that Integrated Pest Management (IPM) makes a heck of a lot of sense. That doesn’t mean that I’ll begin using a lot of chemical pesticides or go gangbusters with chemical fertilizers; it just means that I’ll pay attention to the disease resistance of some hybrids as one of many tools to use in a balanced way in the garden. We’ll see how it goes and I’ll let you know what I use and when and most importantly WHY and what precautions I’ve taken. And we’ll see whether you think I’ve jumped on the industrial production, super-veggy bandwagon.

I’ll not stop using organic methods, especially composting and crop rotation and the like. These just make sense. In fact, the research just keeps getting stronger. Take my strawberry patch, for example. I’ve been using a rotation for several years that was suggested by Gene Logsdon that includes corn in the rotation. However, this year I’ve discovered that broccoli planted in the rotation prior to strawberries leaves a natural fungicide (glucosinolate) that keeps verticillium in check. (Krishna Subbarao, University of California, plant pathologist; see Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew, Samuel Fromartz)

Our family loves broccoli, so guess what we’ll plant instead of corn in that strawberry rotation for 2008? It never hurts to try a little experimenting of our own, especially the edible kind.

While you are planning your own garden, check out our new Indianapolis Gardening Calendar. I think you’ll like it.

Tumbledown Farm

The Gardener's Guide to Better Soil

2007-11-25T14:01:00.000-08:00

The Gardener's Guide to Better Soil by Gene Logsdon and the editors of Organic Gardening and Farming. 1975. Rodale Press.

The thing is, the most important thing to know about a book is whether the author writes well. That goes double for non-fiction writing. I really don't care whether Mr. Logsdon knows how to garden if he doesn't know how to write. Thankfully, he knows how to do both well. And the book holds up well for its age, written in the 1970s, during the last oil (and chemical fertilizer) crisis. While most of us conveniently forgot for the intervening 30 years about the limits of fossil fuels, a small cadre of organic gardeners and farmers continued to ask how to produce food in sufficient quality and quantity when (not if) the oil runs out.

Logsdon's genius for spinning a yarn is evident on nearly every page. The book contains everything a gardener would ever want to know about the soil, and then some. But it also drops other gems of gardening knowledge and lore along the way. For example, chapter 2 begins with a "conversation" between two gardeners on a road trip and continues with a recommendation for (and description of) a cross-country "Soilwatching Trip" from the Pine Barrens to the mountains and deserts of the West. And the itinerary includes a short course in the basics: soil types, soil maps, soil texture, soil tests, nutrients (N-P-K), micronutrients, organic matter, humus, drainage, pH, mulching, composting, organic fertilizers, and green manures. And somewhere along the way, Logsdon finds the time to talk about buying good farmland and to explain such gardening essentials as crop rotation, even offering examples of useful rotations and gardening tool recommendations.

There are a few caveats. One is that the dichotomy between "chemical" and "organic" fertilizers is too starkly drawn. The gardener worthy the name will neither dump chemicals willy-nilly on the garden nor avoid them altogether. Chemical fertilizers will have their place in growing vegetables so long as they are inexpensively available. (That they will not be available indefinitely is a reason to know and begin to use the alternatives.) Another example is Logsdon's east-Ohio centric vision of farming and gardening. When he approves without reservation most things that raise the pH of the soil, it is fairly clear that he has usually gardened and farmed an acid soil. Gardeners in central Indiana will want to approach with caution any soil emendation that raises a pH that is probably already too high for optimum plant growth. But these are really quibbles with a great literary romp through what every gardener should know about the ground under his feet.

Master Gardener Class Begins

2007-09-27T13:26:00.000-07:00

Is it possible to turn a Tumbledown Farmer into a Master Gardener? I guess we’ll find out.

Tumbledown paid his $95 and is taking his chances. This past Tuesday, he spent all day in class at Purdue Extension-Marion County learning all he could about “plant science” and “horticulture” and “entomology” and “insect pests” and “weeds.” We began class with a pretest, which Tumbledown almost certainly flunked. The day then followed with lecture, aided by PowerPoint outline, photos, and physical examples (field samples). So far the experience is both exhilarating and daunting. If you enjoyed High School biology and wanted to go deeper, and if you love gardening, this may be the place for you. Tumbledown will keep you posted about what he’s learning and how it is going. If there are veteran Master Gardeners out there who would like to share their advice and experiences with Tumbledown readers, just register with the blog (see the link on the side bar) and leave us a comment. Share a note of encouragement or a note of caution, whichever fits.

Wondering what the Master Gardener Program is all about? Check out the Purdue Extension-Marion County Master Gardener page. Have a gardening question? E-mail it for an answer to the Master Gardeners who are standing by at marionmg@purdue.edu. Or call 317-275-9292.

There is a moral dilemma for Tumbledown, of course, given his natural suspicion of government programs and industrial agriculture (pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and the like). It is clear from day one (and from the agreement potential Master Gardeners are required to sign in order to enroll) that the course will include information about the proper use of pesticides and fertilizers, and to provide that information at the conclusion of the course to those who ask questions about how to garden.

Tumbledown has decided that he will take the Master Gardener course with his eyes wide open, hoping to discern where the information provided by the Extension Service educator can be used within the context of traditional (late 19th, early 20th century), diversified, sustainable small farms and gardens. He’ll take notes and report about those aspects of the course that tend to support and exhibit indebtedness to industrial agriculture and those that tend to support local, small farms.

Already it is possible to see some of the biases that so annoy Gene Logsdon and Wendell Berry. For example, the whole program falls under the rubric “Consumer Horticulture” (the only recognized alternative being “Commercial Agriculture”). Commercial ag produces; consumer ag consumes. Thus the economic engine revs. Still, the overall impression after the first day is of an Extension program with significant balance, able to hear and respond to the criticisms that have been leveled at it for some time. Not always altogether fair in its assessment of some “traditional wisdom,” but less strident in its opposition, and more willing to consider “organic” and biological controls than Tumbledown thought the purveyors of un-sustainable industrial agriculture might be.

Tumbledown will be listening to hear whether the things being taught are able to be fit into an emphasis on “genetic diversity, local adaptation, and conservation of energy.” (Berry, The Way of Ignorance) Tumbledown will be listening, in short, to improve his bottom line (the improvement of his garden.

Tumbledown Farm